ThereWillBeNoPeace
by annabellefleur
Summary: ORIGINAL STORY— Theia was born to war. Marcus was charged by war to remove two children from the carnage of the Peloponnesian War. Theia and James, the twin children of Ares, spend their days secluded and training. When Theia rips open a hole in time and steps through she must reconcile the loss of her family with the land that feels like home.
1. Prologue

The child was born to a war.

Her mother, a refugee from Sparta, had brought her forth in a place where women were barred: on the marble of the Athenian assembly. The stench of her mother's death crawled over the floor baptizing the babe's body. When it did not cry, the huddled men and women thought the child dead. When they'd discovered it's hammering heart, beating triumphantly against the impossibly fragile chest. The frightened elders did something uncharacteristic, they named it: Theia, after the Titanness of sight and calm. Gathered around her as she wriggled, the besieged Athenians silently gazed at the child who met the world in its darkest hour. A mortal who seemed to be staring past them and into the very eyes of the god of War, unafraid.

When the Spartans breeched the assembly, the conclave of elders, women and children, did the next uncharacteristic thing. They formed a protective circle around the babe; and there without swords they stood down the fiercest warriors the world had ever known. With holy vengeance men aged grey were slain, and Theia, for the second time, greeted death as the blood of chaos baptized her fair skin, staining the soft sprouts of fuzz on her head. Her blue eyes wide absorbing the righteousness of the men who'd fought to conceal her. The only light amongst darkness. A dying man crawled to where she writhed, his eyes anguished, his hands weathered. He lay next to her and with his ancient finger wrote the length of her body: Theia. The most precious of gifts it that which is the last one a person is able to give. Time lurched, the man coughed, more blood spilling onto the child. The world moved slower, and the gods in Olympus stared down at the scene. They bore through the chaos, past the fire as it ate away homes, past the rivers of blood as they streaked through the agora and down the pristine hill, past the frantic mourners who clung to mangled bodies. Their might and divinity bore into the assembly where they witnessed the man brand Theia with the memory of his life. They watched in abject horror as Theia stared back.

A man, clad in leather, one hand gripping the hilt of his sword and the other clasped around the leather straps of his shield, scooped Theia up and exited the fray. In his arms the babe dripped blood, both her mothers and the Athenian elders'. From death she was birthed, in chaos she was grounded, in desperation she was named. Around the two of them, the clang of steal ripped through the sky, the shouts of victory and laments of destruction tore through the fabric of the universe in the most brutal of ways. All while the soldier held the babe tightly to his chest as it caved and rose steadily. He stared down into her eyes and the world seemed to tilt. He was filled with the peace that accompanied a warm day, a soft breeze rippled through his blood stained helmet lifting the curls on his head, he smiled. They ran.


	2. Beginnings

Theia woke to the memory of hooves beating through the sky, the feeling of fabric tearing as the world tore down its middle, the smell of fire and blood as it rained down; drenching her. She remembered warm death and her body arching to accept its gift.

Laying sprawled on top a coverlet with a pale arm flopped over her eyes, she tried grasping at the images of her dream. The more she dared though, the quicker they fell dispersing like a wet fog in her veins. She came away from the bed feeling damp and tired. She shrugged into a cotton dress, twirled her hair into a knotted mess and pierced it into submission with a wooden pencil. There was a rap at her door and a second later it swung open. James stood before her, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his golden hair looking as if he'd used his nibble fingers as a comb again. He was always like that, calmly simpering, like a live wire warring off physical touch. "You're late." His voice was warm honey sliding over Theia in ways she didn't like. If James was a live wire, Theia was the power socket and power sockets didn't like to be drenched. She hurdled a pencil, which clattered against the wall before sliding limping to the floor in derision. James, who had spun out of the room in a flurry of liquid movement, shut the door in response.

She was lumbering this morning, she knew, but she hadn't been sleeping well. She kept dreaming of death and men she could save. She kept waking up feeling like she'd failed with an ache in her chest that she couldn't understand. She felt volatile and used up, like the thin white nirvana shirt James refused to throw out. Ripping the door open she descended into the long hallway. Fingers trailing over smooth white walls, arms stretching and feet arching. The Conclave, as her father had called it, was a new development in Theia's life. Perched on an obscure island in the Black Sea, she and James had been flitted off a week ago leaving their London townhouse to desolation. Theia had liked London, it was pulsing with energy and since weaving energy was Theia's specialty, being removed from it had blunted her patience. She was used to moving like this, in a hurried rush as the three of them slung prepackaged to-go duffles over their shoulders, clasped hands and rode the wind until Marcus let go. She knew she was being a little petty, sulking for a week now, but this island, in her esteemed option: sucked. It felt like living on a permeant precipice and it stressed her the fuck out.

Flinging open a door at the end of the hallway she stepped inside. The room was identical to the one they'd had on the top floor of their townhouse, geometrically square, bland and functional. This unchanging room was truly the only consistent thing Theia had in her life; besides James and their mutual distaste of their father. The room was sparse and large, the floor hard cement, the four walls white and lined with fixtures which held weapons of numerous varieties in place. There were two cement rectangular benches on either side of the room sitting parallel to one another. James was lounged on the one to the right side of the room spinning a throwing star idly in his hand. Theia was overcome with memories of the first time she had been hurt by one of those. She had been no more that seven at the time, trying to bulk up the nerve to hurl her body at James. It was not the earliest memory she had of James but it was the most pungent one. She had hesitated and he had seen. With a speed and intensity she had not imagined could come from her brother the bladed star had sailed through the air with a placid whistle. In a flash of movement Theia had pivoted slightly managing to direct the star into her shoulder blade instead of the center of her chest. Where it had stayed lodged, embedded two inches deep into her right shoulder. She had felt the two points crack her clavicle in an unsettling way. For a few stretched out seconds neither of them did anything, their eyes locked on the star. Waves of terror rolling from James into her. A thick silence held taunt between their fixed gazes. Then their father had bounded into the room and the stalled sense of time crumbled. James was on his feet and over to Theia's side in a flurry of movement. Theia had dragged her eyes off the throwing star and up to her brother's blanched face trailing their way to his wide frightened eyes. The realization of the moment settled slowly into her bones and a throbbing began in her shoulder. She knew in that moment what she had to do, she took one of her brothers calloused hands, laced their fingers together and then she ripped the throwing star out of her clavicle. Blood poured down the right side of her body soaking her white clothes.

The world had only ever crashed on Theia twice in her life: once when her father had thrown her older brother into the Thames River and told the boy who couldn't swim to learn quickly and then in that moment when she ripped out the throwing star and scarlet pain tore through her body. It rippled like a slimy eel, electrifying her veins and try as she had to stop the flow of blood with her one free hand, it spilled through her fingers in a terrifying way. Smelling of iron and fear her father had stared intently at them. James who had stood breathing heavily seemed to be bodily exiled from his shocked trance by the vulgar river of blood soaking through Theia's tank-top. She willed him to focus, she thought it over and over again, pleading silently with her brother : Focus, James.

Amazingly, he had. Almost as if he had heard her, his eyes snapped into focus and in a deliberate movement their interlaced fingers came up to her shoulder. A small line of concentration knitted his two eyes together. His lips moved quickly in the way they did when he was nervous. He looked like a Grecian god Theia had thought. Moments later something began to happen, Theia moaned tersely, James' eyes flickered momentarily to hers before resettling onto her shoulder. A new pain had begun to claw its way through her body, she felt as if thousands of tiny hooks had latched into the split skin of her shoulder and were slowly pulling the skin back together. The pace at which James healed Theia's should was agonizing and Theia realized she should be screaming. This should be unbearable in a different way than it was unbearable to her. It felt like she had been startled awake violently and now there was a new awareness sharpening around her. She was aware of her brother and the worry lines wrinkling his young face. She was bitterly aware of Marcus, their father, leaning against the corner where two walls met, arms crossed, an expectant and eery look in his eyes. She was aware of the rippling fibers tying James to Theia and Theia and James to Marcus. She could see them like glittery translucent cashmere threads all around them, the ones between Theia and James, she realized, were vibrating. She touched them with her minds eye, the one she hadn't known could touch things and sent what she hoped were reassurances toward James. He stilled almost immediately, gasped silently, and in a snap the split in Theia's shoulder closed. James recoiled from her with a fleeting look of anguish and sprinted from the room, sending the door slamming into the wall, settling dust onto Marcus' feet.

Theia had remembered what it had been like to feel the raised welt on her shoulder after that, a vertical line about 4 inches long. It had been the moment she realized all the lies Marcus was capable of telling so well. It had been the moment they had all realized James' one weakness was her. It had been the day she had consciously decided to start calling her father Marcus.

Now, standing before James on her respective side of the training room, staring at the throwing star he played with but never again threw at her, Theia was reminded of how frail her brother had once been. She wondered, as well, if he was remembering the same thing she had been when she walked in. Probably, she conceded, they often knew what the other one was thinking.

"Well, you look like shit." He said, pale sea green eyes ranking over my body as she flicked a wide sword from it's hanging

She groaned in annoyance. "It's easy for you here, you deal in matter. I deal in energy."

"There's different energy sources than just humans, you know." He stood, stretched his arms up and backward with a large exhale.

"Don't you feel like you're living on edge here? Literally," She swung her arms in a sweeping movement "the only thing we can do, is leap off the roof into the ocean. Do you know how many times I've done laps around the inside of this complex just to move." Moving was essential to Theia in a way that it wasn't to her brother. She could harness the energy she or others generated and redirect it to do as she willed. In theory, Marcus had told them, she could use anything in the universe, even the universe itself because everything consumes and expels energy that can be molded. James only needed matter, objects, and ground beneath his palms. It didn't help that he seemed to be better at doing the things that Marcus told him to do either. Theia was good, she knew, but James, James was magnificent with what he could do. He could break every bone in a human body and put them all back together within seconds without even a slight change in his facial expression. Theia often wished she had that ability, she was better with practical things. Like combat, Theia truly excelled at combat. James had one time walked into the training room while she was hurtling through the air, sword raise above her head, pale strawberry hair flailing behind her as she plummeted to the ground plunging the sword into the chest of hard rubber dummy. James had whistled softly.

James stepped into the center of the room having placed the throwing star on the cement bench just as Marcus entered the room. Theia returned the sword. Her sword, the sword, she always chose. It was heavy and shiny, its steel the color of moonlight. When she had first chosen her weapon of choice Marcus had quirked up an eyebrow and turned to James, who had, to both of their surprise chosen the throwing star, just the one. The one that had given Theia the only scar she had on her body. After that day, James had gotten immensely better at healing wounds without traces.

Marcus clapped his hands together in a deafening sound and James sprang at her. Theia, being tightly wound and off her game felt the impact down to her core. With a confused grimace they fell in a tangle of limb onto the unforgiving ground. A prickle of battle sang in her veins, she fought to tap it down. James was on his feet with Theia a second later, she could feel Marcus' disapproval weighing her down. They circled each other. Theia had gotten very familiar with trying to read his brother's face. Often his weapon of choice was that which was unseen. Unfortunately for Theia, her brother had been getting exponentially better at hiding things from her.

"Theia." It was Marcus, in his voice were all the things Theia hated in the world. Her eyes slid to his black iris' briefly and he flinched mildly. "You are not trying."

In an unforeseeable passing of a second Theia somersaulted into the air and landed, straddling her brothers shoulders and using her muscled calves to yank him onto the ground. He groaned in annoyance. Where James was thoughtful and careful, Theia was spontaneous and deadly. Over the years she had nearly killed her brother four times, each time she swore never to hurt him again and every time they entered this room she broke that promise. That sort of thing really wears on a girl. She sprang away from him as they began to circle one another again. "Maybe I'm just bored." She flung the strands of hair out of her face aggressively, her brother's eyes sparkled.

"Enough." The two stopped dead, shrugging out of the fighting stances they'd just barely started to settle into. Theia let the tension dissolve from her body and retreated to her side of the training room. "Back to the center Theia." Her feet faltered, the chord that connected her to her brother and father felt taunt, when she turned around all the color from James' face had drained. He sat slowly, carefully, and silently onto his bench.

There was one thing Marcus had never done before and that was have Theia not fight James. Yet, there she found herself in the center of the room staring at the figure stalking towards her. James, who had gone rigid crossed his legs stiffly on top of the bench. Theia threw him a calming smile, the one that felt like the air feels when the sun is setting. Warm and cool at the same time.

"If you are bored than I am failing as a parent." Theia didn't think that was the proper reason that Marcus had failed as father. She worried her lip, he was walking towards her slowly, rolling the sleeves of his black sweater up to his elbows. It had never failed to amaze Theia how little she looked like him. She had fair skin, long waves of strawberry hair, a thin wispy build, and soft blue eyes. Marcus, on the other hand, was her complete inverse. He had caramel skin which rippled with latent tension, hazel eyes and soft brown hair that hugged his sharp chin delicately. He was taller, stronger, and leaner than she could ever dream to be, no matter how hard she trained. He stood before her now easily. Like a grey cat stretching out to embrace the sun.


	3. Failings

Theia could never just do the simple thing. James thought as he watched his father descend onto Theia like a hawk about to pluck out a squirrel from the under brush. His body felt like it was compelling him into action, to hurl himself in between the two trains before they collided in a spectacle of crushing metal. With a silent glance from Theia he sat rooted in his spot, her gaze seemed to say: I foresaw this, everything is fine. Which of course, she couldn't possibly have.

When they started to move his body visibly recoiled like a live wire cut from a telephone pole; flapping indelicately around in the wind. Our father. James thought. He towered over Theia as shivers rippled through her body. James had never watched Theia fight another person before, a part of him was enthralled. He witnessed her descend like a terrifying lightening bolt onto a rubber dummy one time but he'd never realized how terrifyingly at ease she looked in the circle. He was suddenly not afraid for Theia, but for Marcus.

If Marcus looked as disturbed as James felt he didn't show it. In fact, James reasoned, tilting his head to the side. He seemed far too comfortable.

Theia was wondering if she was supposed to make the first offensive move when Marcus started to move. His left foot lifted off the floor and every cell inside of Theia seemed to contract and then jolt to life. She stared into his eyes and felt savage. With a wince, Marcus started circling her. Neither she nor James had ever seen Marcus fight. A small part of her mind told her this could go very wrong if she wasn't careful. The other part of her relished in the moment, all those times he stood in the corner watching her and James move with morbid fascination. Now he was her opponent, and Theia realized with a start, she'd been somehow waiting for this moment. Secretly wishing it'd come. A terrible sort of guilt settled onto her shoulders and ran through her like liquid nitrogen, she shivered.

Starting with his feet and trailing up, Theia studied Marcus, he seemed to expel latent energy with every controlled step. Watching him move was like watching an archangel shaking off a millennia of retirement. His knees were bent slightly and his back tensed as if every single one of his atoms were sinking into the posture. His hands lay limping to his sides twitching faintly as if he was mildly annoyed by the fact he had nothing to hold. His broad shoulders, the ones that James had inherited, were straight and braced. Finally, she met his eyes, they had an unreadable expression, as they often did. He'd been waiting, she started, waiting for her to finish analyzing him. He knew her so well and she knew nothing about him. The fight hardly seemed fair to her at all. His eyes glimmered in a way that told her he approved of the action and then it happened. His capable arms shot out at incredible speed and collided with the soft inside of Theia's torso. Absorbing the impact with a sharp intake of breath she narrowly managed to sidestep his next blow. Kicking off with the balls of her feet, she sprang off the ground, spiraling around him silently thanking past-Theia for having had the insight to stick with Ballet.

It didn't seem to James that humans ought to be capable of moving quickly. It was sickening really, a blur of movement occupying fragmented seconds, the only two people he loved more than himself descending onto each other maliciously. Theia twirled expertly, leaping lightly into the air, as she spun around their father's massive frame. Very cat-like, he noted. Her finger curled back and her arm jutted out just as Marcus had pivoted to face her. The small knot of a hand connected with Marcus' jaw. It hardly looked like it had hurt, but James, who had felt the impact of Theia's punches before, flinched on Marcus' behalf. A stench of dread weighted the air clinging to objects like fine layers of dust on porcelain. They continued like this: endlessly seeking out each others weaknesses. Lashing out like poised vipers, huffing softly, eyes locked onto each others. James didn't think Theia had ever maintained this long of eye contact with her father before. More quickly than James would have thought possible Marcus struck out the palm of his hand, it shot forward in half a second and sunk into Theia's left shoulder blade. Her entire body ricocheted to the left, her feet spinning out of her fighting stance by the impact. A horrible cracking sound tore through the room. Theia, in a creepy way that James wished he could unsee, smiled. Her shoulder was hanging too far down and she winced as she backed away from Marcus who countered her retreat with his advance. Neither hesitated. Neither cared as James did. Marcus struck out again, thrusting a fist into the injured forearm and launching a heavy booted foot into his daughters side which she had managed to narrowly deflect. James was filled with a sudden mental image, Theia standing in Hyde Park, palms up towards the sky as soft flakes of snow luxuriously fell into them dissolving on contact. James thought Theia were those snowflakes now. A huge flake tipping to the side. He felt as if he could feel her scream, the first real scream she'd ever omitted in her life, clawing itself up from his stomach and rushing towards the assailant like a preverbal slap. Marcus's carefully composed face cracked for a second only James witnessed but otherwise showed no sides of mercy as he advanced on Theia who'd been forced to toss out her injured and dislocated arm behind her to break her fall. James willed her to move quickly. Get up!

Theia was aware that she was quickly approaching failure, the throbbing in her shoulder thrumming in unison with her heartbeat as she tried to steel her mind from what she had to do next. Her eyes flickered quickly to the walls of the training room, there was five feet between the circle and the wall, and two feet between the bench and the circle. She discarded their aide. She righted herself with a lurching jolt groaning as she took five hasty steps away from Marcus. Not only did she now have to slide her shoulder up and back into its joint, but she had to jam it forward. In order to do that, she had to break and reset her arm in one go, which would require a large force and an even greater resistance. Quelling the uncharacteristic well of panic bubbling inside her stomach she paused to glare at Marcus who's carefully passive face showed no signs of pity. A panther closing in on a meal. Theia imagined.

Theia resented him for believing he could disable her so quickly and was bitter because he nearly had. Calling up all the nerves she could muster, a furious determination settled into her bones. A flutter of shock passed over Marcus' face, he hadn't anticipated Theia would attempt to continue, she realized, he thought she'd concede. Theia crouched and sprung at him alight with a burning fury. Using sheer adrenaline to mask the searing pain that erupted in her shoulder as her body connected with Marcus. Her ankles gripped his neck and before he could react both Theia and Marcus were falling. Theia, acting quickly, jerked her hips so that her back fell with Marcus', using her calves to propel them forward she placed her right hand on the back of her left shoulder blade and pulled just as they connected with the ground. There was a defeating thud and a hissing growl of raw pain followed instantly by a horrible pop-snapping sound as the shoulder joint popped back into place and the fractured bone in her forearm shattered. It was all Theia could do to breathe. She lay there for what seemed like a frozen second in time, ripping oxygen from the world and into her lungs shallowly. A white ring of terror and torment flooded her eyes. Tears fled down her cheeks as she felt the impossible weight of her father pressing her broken body further into the cement. She was sure that if she stayed longer underneath him her ribs would be pulverized.

James was on his feet without realizing it. The most heart wrenching moan broke free of Theia and for a second the entire room froze. In awe of his sister, he simply stared, mouth agape as her tiny frame was almost completely covered by Marcus' body. James thought that Theia had brought their father's 6'3 tall body down by sheer will alone. He watched his father's face contort in a way it had never before, a look of raw fear sprang forward as his eyes went wide, he was huffing in a way that was uncomfortable to look at. James' eyes flickered to Theia who's shiny hair pillowed out from her head, her eyes where closed so tightly and her jaw was clenched in a way that made James' heart flutter painfully. She was breathing shallowly for a several seconds before her eyes flung open. A river of tears slid off the sides of her face and in an agonizing movement her legs and arms wrapped around Marcus' still frozen body. James wanted nothing more than to cry out for her to stop, but he could hardly breathe properly let alone work his vocal cords. He watched in pained silence as his 5'6 tall, 125 pound sister thrust her body into a heave that seemed to cost her an immeasurable amount of effort flipping Marcus over. In the same fluid movement Theia shoved off of his back with one quivering forearm clutching and retreated. Scuttling back with her knees bent. Her eyes remained on Marcus who'd leaped to his feet and was regarding her as if she were the shiniest thing he'd ever seen. It took James a moment to realize that Marcus had not been afraid for himself but for Theia, his eyes were darting like hummingbirds over the length of her body scrutinize it, searching for permeant damage. James couldn't remember the last time he believed their father had ever showed that he cared for either of them. But in that moment all James could see was love. A groan from Theia tore his eyes from their father and he watched as his sister clutched her left arm protectively holding it in towards her torso. He willed her to concede the fight. Concede! Her eyes flickered to him and back instantly.

James couldn't have moved if he wanted to, the shock of it was too much. All he could see was where Theia's shoulder joint had been forced out and back in, where the fracture had snapped in two as Marcus' weight fell on top of hers. The entire arm looked red, swollen, and angry. James was aware that another sound had erupted in the room, a wail of pure pain, it took him a long heavy moment to realize that his mouth was open and his throat was constricting uncomfortably. His knees buckled underneath his body as if it was he who'd suffered instead of Theia. He met Theia's concerned eyes, who'd whipped towards him at the sound seemingly forgetting everything, just before he felt the impact of the ground rise up to meet his legs.

Theia was watching Marcus' every move. Apart for a demented look in his eyes, the man hardly seem hurt at all. Then she heard it, the worst sound she'd ever heard in her entire life, it seemed to rip from some place deep within her nightmares. Her brother, her soft lovely brother who loved the ocean and starfish and melted hot chocolate had crumpled to the floor, his knees pressed as close to the circle's edge as they could get without actually crossing the border. Theia quickly ranked her eyes over his body searching for signs of injury and winced at the sight of his eyes, wide, frightened, and in pain. She saw reflected in the golden iris' what was cursing through her body, the agony of heavy forces falling onto her bones and snapping them into cruel submission. She couldn't stand to see such an undiluted form of misery. Wrenching her body away from his kneeling form she carefully removed her shirt and fastened her left arm into a sling just has Marcus began advancing on her again. Logically she knew that time only seemed to be moving slower for her, that they were mostly passing only seconds by.

The pain had begun to distort Theia's thoughts, it told her that this would never end, that its indescribable agony would remain forever embedded within her very DNA. With her molars and her right hand's fingers she affixed the makeshift sling mentally thanking herself for the last minute decision to throw on a sturdy training bra instead of the lace halter she'd slept in. She stepped forward away from the edge of the circle and towards Marcus. Something within Theia had broken when her father's body fell on top of her, something immaterial. Like a switch flipping on, Theia felt the sharp clarity of the battle before her, the opponent whom she could hurt. A feeling of freedom seeped into her bloodstream and was seemingly electrifying her. She could feel the fibers under her feet as she gave energy and took it with each step. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her brother's voice was telling her she couldn't kill Marcus, but that voice was drowned out by the feeling of detachment. Theia couldn't stop now, even if she'd wanted to; she and Marcus were on a path a path had no rules. This is what he wanted anyway. He wanted the savage. Theia thought, sidestepping Marcus first assault. She saw the tension in his body as a stark contrast to hers. Her limbs had sunk into a relaxed stance in part from fatigue and in part from the dull ache that thrummed through her shoulder and into her heart. Down an arm, she swung her leg in a large arc, which Marcus narrowly avoided. Leaping into the air he kicked out at her. Her mind reacted instantaneously. Don't fall again. She honestly didn't think she would be able to get up again if she fell now. In a panicked sort of hysteria her body twisted and like a wound up tetherball spun the other way. Using her right arm, Theia caught Marcus' leg, jerked it up and let it go. Marcus fell with a sharp exhale as the air rushed out of his lungs. He recovered faster than Theia had anticipated and was up in a low crutch before she'd even planned her next assault. His right hand planted on the floor, his chest heaving, black ringlets of hair falling into his eyes as he glared at Theia.

He hadn't expected her to hold up as well as she was. Theia backed up slowly, she was tired, the sort of overexerted tired that seeped into your bones, made your limbs ache unpleasantly and your eyesight go fuzzy around the edges. She wanted this to be over, her shoulder was beating pulses of pain into her body with every heart beat she took and she wasn't realistically sure how long she could keep this up before she fainted. The only thing that was actually keeping her on her feet was sheer will. When she looked into Marcus' eyes she saw an unreadable expression that was tinged with fatigue as well. They were circling each other again, slowly, methodologically. Then, whether it be because of the cause ache she was feeling, or her desire to take a hot bath; Theia made a subtle change, she stepped back on her right foot, bent her back and transferring all her weight to her right hand her feet came off the ground and she released herself into the air. He had only a second for his eyes to widen before Theia's feet collided with his chest. There wasn't as much force as Theia would have liked but it was enough to catch Marcus off guard. Enough to stomp him down to the ground, his head smacked the cement, bounced up and whacked it again with a sickening sound. Marcus's eyes fluttered shut as Theia stepped off him and out of the circle. "I win." She murmured collapsed onto the cement bench.

The words jolted James into action. He darted around the circle to Theia and kneeled in front of her. His eyes wide and focused on her shoulder, his mind groped from the material of it, cursing he reorganized the shattered bones in her arm and created new ones to bind the fragmented pieces. Slowly his eyes rapidly taking in every inch of Theia, checking for further injuries, he saw the blotchy red marks that had so aggressively swelled her shoulder reside. The blanched look drained away from her face as the pain faded, her jaw unclenched as she leaned her forehead against his, exhaling in slow breathes. "Marcus." She whispered before drawing away from James. James had entirely forgotten about Marcus until that very moment. Started he jerked away from Theia and whirled around. James had never seen Marcus look so vulnerable, residual bitterness welled up in his chest. He'd hurt Theia. "James." The softness of Theia's thin voice banished the feelings of anger and he moved to kneel beside their father. A small pool of blood was forming dampening his black hair. It occurred to James that he hadn't actually ever touched his father's hair before. Laying a palm on it was a surreal feeling, on the one hand he reveled in the feeling of silk under his fingers, and the other hand he was forced to stamp down the anger boiling his blood. He felt for the injury in his mind and mended together the crack in his skull, patching the material with the ones he created, feeling the mass take shape and form smoothing out the areas like plaster. When Marcus's eyes slowly opened and a low groan tore from the back of his throat James was satisfied with his work and stood away from his father who was already leaning up on his elbows surveying his surroundings.


	4. Sounds

Theia was already on her feet and hesitating at the door when Marcus began to lean forward. Her heart fluttered painfully in her chest with relief. For a moment she wasn't sure if James would heal him. Without the haze of agony Theia was able to reflect on the events that had just transpired. She never wanted to look into the eyes of her father again. She never wanted to step foot into that circle of this room again. It was cold now, she didn't know how she couldn't see it before. This room, with its cement walls and floors, it was cold.

She was opening and out the door before Marcus had even seen her, rushing down the corridor she threw her bedroom door open snatched up a basket of toiletries and was already running the hot water into the claw-footed tub when she her the soft knock on the door. "Not now James." Her voice was rung, like a dirty white table linen that'd been cleaned and hung to dry so many times it had been worn smooth.

"Theia." It was Marcus.

Stepping into the hot water, foaming lightly with lavender soaps and milk, she lets her aching body dissolve into the euphoria of released tension. The soft knocking continues for bit before falling away leaving Theia in a self-imposed silence.

James hadn't noticed Theia leave until Marcus was sprinting out of the room. Latent energy building up in him, he did what he normally did when he felt self distractive. He found his way to the front door, a heavy wooden contraption that required sliding two heavy bolts aside before you could open it. Once outside he took the saltwater worn steps two at a time to the flat sand and grassy plateau that gave way to a smooth sand dune edge which parted to a white pebbly beach. James could see why Theia hated it here, after living for so long in cities, thrusting her into a place devoid of human beings save himself and their father would drove Theia mad. It's not as if the island wasn't large, it was actually quite big enough to get lost in if one wanted to and James still wasn't sure what was on the other side of it, the side with the trees and brushes that he could only see when sitting on top of their roof.

To James though, this island was cozy. He had never been much a fan of being submerged in water but he liked the way the ocean turned the pebbles over sand over and over again churning up shells, drift wood, and smooth glass pieces. He took to the edge of the plateau and with careful experience descended the few six feet easily. Collapsing onto the sand he laid down and stared at the clouds willing the pent up anger, nervous anxiety, and fear seep out from him like the ragged breathes he drew into his body. It was in moments like this that he thought most of the conversation that birthed this nomadic and violent existence he and Theia were trapped in. It was the day after their mother died, the day that he swore he saw Marcus' body rip in half. Both him and Theia had been sat down in ravaged living room of their childhood home in the sparse countryside of Athens. Their mother's blood still stained the blue Turkish carpet, the intricate patterns mangled by death. Theia, pressed close to him sat wide eyed and unresponsive as Marcus began. "You two are special in ways you cannot imagine right now and terrible people have come and torn our family apart, but they will not defeat us okay. You need to remember that for when things get to be too much. They may hurt us. They will try to tear off pieces of our heart. But they are not capable of destroying us. We will always survive together."

A week later they'd packed up their clothes and trinkets of sentimental value and were gone, vanishing into thin air and reappearing in Paris where they lived out of an apartment building, started training, and began to be home schooled. James wasn't sure how often Theia thought about the words Marcus had said to them that night. She was only five at that point and James, being two years older had barely managed to understand that their mother was murdered and they could not report it to the police.

It took Theia an incredibly long time to extract herself from the bathtub and even more effort to lumber out to the kitchen table for dinner. She wore cashmere from head-to-toe and a face that said she was not going to be talking to or looking anyone in the eyes. She exhaled deeply into the seat next to James who's eyes silently took stock of her. She would have skipped dinner tonight had she not fallen asleep in the bath and was incredibly starving by the time she'd managed to strike up the will to move. She was aware of the stiffly silence that seemed to have descended onto the three of them as they all picked at the fish. She honestly wasn't sure how Marcus had managed to get green beans imported onto the island but she noted them as a nonverbal attempt by him to appease her.

"Theia." At the sound of his voice Theia's jaw set. She fixed a hideous glare onto him and dared him to say another word. To her surprise Marcus bodily recoiled, dropping his fork with a deafening clatter. James sucked in a nearly silent gulp of breath around a large swallow of green beans. If a look could have verbally spoke Theia's would have, in that moment, said, 'I am not so evidently talking to you.' Marcus' shoulders, normally so fixed and straight sunk in on themselves, he looked torn between wanting to say something and not knowing what to say. "I—

Theia did not hear the rest, her vision flashed white with rage as she threw her chair back the thick wooden pegs scraping loudly against the white painted cement floor before toppling over in an indigent thud.

In a fractured second Theia was striding away from the table, James was swallowing a piece of fish looking frantically between his father and Theia, and Marcus had silently stood up to follow calmly after her. James didn't think it was a smart plan for Marcus to go shuffling after a woman so clearly pissed off but he remained silent. He finished his food and the food on Theia's plate — he was always a nervous eater — then cleared the table. He scrubbed the plates harder than he ought to have as they were only made of a thick ceramic material Theia had created when going through her artist phase. There was a crack in one of them that ran straight through the center of the plate, it was the plate Marcus had always used. James vaguely wondered if he should check on Theia and Marcus when he heard the crash. Flinching his head turned toward the sound. He slowly turned off the water, set the last plate on the cotton dish rag and exited the kitchen. A series of crashes bellowed through the silent house, shattering glass and splintering wood echoing off the white cement walls. Thinking it best to not involve himself in a Theia triad that was for once not directed at him, James plucked one of the seven books that traveled with them from house to house and with a huff sunk into the overstuffed couch in the living room to read, for the fourth time: War and Peace.

The last person Theia wanted to follow her was Marcus. She did not want to look, speak, or be within touching proximity of him. Yet, there he was, calmly marching after her, his steady feet pressurizing the floor. Making it to her door she flung it open and shut in a single movement, locking herself behind its heavy separator. She could feel Marcus standing outside the door, breathing slowly.

"Theia, open the door." Theia didn't think she was capable of speaking in the moment so she crossed the room and sit lithely on the edge of her unmade bed. The doorknob rattled, every muscle in her body tensed.

"Don't." She had barely spoken in an audible way but the rattling stopped.

"Theia, we should talk." Theia, again, didn't feel as if she was capable of speaking more than single monolithic words at the moment. What exactly did one say after nearly killing their father? She could still feel the memory of pain ricochet through her body as her shoulder collided with the ground. She had seemingly internalized the crunching sound her bones had made. What did one say to the man who'd forced her into such a precarious situation? "I'm opening this door in less than 10 seconds."

Irrationally thinking kicked Theia into gear, she stood, picked up a vase with flowers she'd found in her room after she returned from her long bath. She resolved to launch them at her father as soon as the door opened. And open it did, slowly, Theia's arm let fly the flowers. The glass shattered against the door, water running down the door in tendrils of translucent ribbons.

Theia thought herself so enraged she could rip apart the very fabric of the universe. It just never occurred to her that she just might be able to. The threads, which dominated her vision at all times were throbbing, as if an extension of herself, they like the very blood in her veins were singing her fury. The man, the one man who ought to have cared for her all her life had done nothing but hurt her. Sometimes, when life just seems too unfair to comprehend things happen that are beyond your control. This was one of those times.

There Theia was clenching and unclenching her fists and there Marcus was placid and stoic as ever. The fuel which ignited the catastrophe. Whether Marcus had expected Theia to explode like this, whether he was hopping for it even, is unknown as his expression of detached cool never slipped. Theia's heart was racing, her breathing shallow and ragged as a single thought entered her mind I cannot do this anymore. She wanted to ruin things. She wanted to let free the desire to destroy everything that Marcus held dear and there came the song. The song which sung of time and its manipulation.


	5. Rage

What sound would time make if it was torn? If time was composed of silvery threads made of small atomic particles which had weight like matter and wove together crisscrossing through the entirety of the universe; could something rip them? When Theia's mind's eye gripped the threads and pulled; they stretched taunt and gave away like a rubber band which when it reaches its maximum resistance flings back on itself collapsing the tension into release. Only when the threads of time flung back on themselves they broke apart severing a vertical hole. For a moment Theia swore she could see through the hole to something beautiful, a grassy plateau which met a landscape of endless jagged hills. Theia believed this was most certainly the delusional result of residual battle fatigue and subsiding rage.

It was in that moment that two simultaneous actions took place. Marcus' stoicism gave way to abject terror as he stepped forward and Theia, against her own accord was thrust, as if pushed from behind, through the hole. She fell through the floor of her bedroom and onto the grass on the other side. Her fingers gripped the grass tightly tearing at their roots, cold seeping into her knees told her the grass was damp. She stayed there on her hands and knees blinking rapidly and breathing calmly unable to think. Soon the sound of birds twittering filtered into her mind, the smell of wet grass and an unpolluted atmosphere entered her nostrils. The sight of wild grass and slithering bugs registered in her minds eye as slowly her ability to perceive the world fell back into place.

It came it increments, her awareness, as it often does when time slows down enough to allow the mind to understand the process of coming out of unconsciousness. First comes the sensation of touch, then sound, followed rapidly by smell, lastly comes sight and then cognition. Like mud bricks being stacked on top of each other, so does the brain begin to regain its ability to recognize, categorize, and make sense it's surroundings.

Theia inhaled sharply breathing in the foreign oxygen molecules and releasing toxins. In a flurry of tangled limbs she scrambled around to stare at the vertical scar which had replaced the hole which she'd been thrust into. Jagged and aggressive the scar marked the place where in violent fury Theia had torn open the fabric of time and it had, in distain, crawled its way back together re-knitting, in a mismatched fashion, the dangling threads in a way that screamed panic. It was as if time itself was a living being who'd been caught off guard and sliced down the middle, thus in a frantic effort to heal itself the dangling threads ran towards their other halves in reckless abandon. The scarring was the result of the threads who were not able to find their original mates. Theia, overcome by the sadness of it all wrenched her eyes away only to fling them back as an even more horrific thought entered her mind. Where I am? Which was followed shortly by: Where is James and Marcus? And finally the last thought sent Theia frantically crawling towards the vertical scar: How do I get back to them?

Theia had never tried to ever physically touch the threads she saw everyday, Marcus had told her they were only visible in her minds eyes and thus could only be touched by the mind's hands. She tried now though, she carefully reached out, stretching her fingertips towards the translucent silver and touch the fabric hesitantly. With a jolt of a gunshot Theia's already exhausted body was hurled backwards and with such an intensity pain began to gnaw at her skin, crawling from the forefinger that had deigned to touch the untouchable and spreading viciously up her veins.

She lay there on her back, her hair blown out of her ponytail by the force of the collision, her bones ached as if they had all broken and re-healed in a matter of seconds. Puffs of air burst forth from her lungs as once again she rapidly blinked her eyelids, trying to clear the glaze of tears that streamed out of them. So I wont be doing that again. Her mind grumbled. It was all she could do to lay there and mentally keep at bay the slow encroach of terror that threatened to incapacitate her. The images of James and Marcus and every memory she had of them frolic through her mind in a sped up loop of film. Images of James and Theia laughing right before clasping each others hands and flinging their bodies into the depths of the ocean below them. Marcus dislocating her shoulder just yesterday, Marcus when she was little bringing her hot chocolate. The tears fell with a new vengeance and it was in this hour of sorrow that so consumed Theia that the ground started to shake. The palpable presence of encroaching danger seemed to salt the air drying out Theia's throat as she continued to swallow. She felt as she had when she was twelve and Marcus had locked her in the basement of their Connecticut manor. For weeks, which had conflated to months in her dehydrated and undernourished brain at the time, Theia was expected to do something, something Marcus had never fully explained to her. And for weeks, Theia rot.

The breeze was gentle and warm. Like a light linen was being settled over her throbbing body. With the calming gusts came the scent of honeysuckle vines which made Theia aware that wherever she happened to be, spring was in full bloom. She decided against moving and instead adjusted her eyes, flicking them closed and open again until the puffy clouds and blue skies took solid form. She trained her eyes to prickle at the sound of a rhythmic rubble. At first she thought it was her heart, hammering against her chest cavity, demanding release from its cave. Then, slowly the movements of the ground synced in her mind with the sound of the clopping. Horses. Her brain told her slowly. Many weighed down horses. Embodied horses. Mounted riders. Warriors.

It was the last coherent thought that brought a trickle of fear back to her legs. Like the time she'd landed on that soft spot in her spine after a particularly rough dual with James and felt the shock of needles stab up her legs as she laid on the cement, huffing in her defeat. She didn't have enough time to really dwell on this because the riders had reached her. Her vision of blue skies and puffy clouds became distorted by sharp jawlines, rough hair, large bodies. Warriors. She really needed to stop thinking that word.

Caramel eyes bore into hers as she breathed in the musky scent of grasslands and sweat, his aura felt the way the earth smells when it rains and Theia did not like it. She did not like the way he felt familiar, she did not like the way every second as she regained control of her she felt more alive than she'd ever felt with her family. Whatever this place was. Wherever — or whenever — she was Theia was not prepared for it.


End file.
